Karl Rove’s prediction: Romney 51, Obama 48

posted at 9:27 pm on October 31, 2012 by Allahpundit

A shot of optimism after a day of eeyorish state polls. How does Rove arrive at this result when eight of the last nine Ohio surveys have O ahead? In two steps: (1) He clearly trusts the national data over the state data, and (2) he cites historical numbers showing that incumbents recently have tended to overperform their national polling on election day by only one percent or so. Obama’s tied with Romney in the RCP national average tonight at 47.4. If, per the historical data, O’s ceiling is therefore at 48 percent, then it follows that most everyone else will break for Romney and that his national advantage will carry him to narrow wins in the states he needs.

As for Ohio:

Adrian Gray, who oversaw the Bush 2004 voter-contact operation and is now a policy analyst for a New York investment firm, makes the point that as of Tuesday, 530,813 Ohio Democrats had voted early or had requested or cast an absentee ballot. That’s down 181,275 from four years ago. But 448,357 Ohio Republicans had voted early or had requested or cast an absentee ballot, up 75,858 from the last presidential election.

That 257,133-vote swing almost wipes out Mr. Obama’s 2008 Ohio victory margin of 262,224. Since most observers expect Republicans to win Election Day turnout, these early vote numbers point toward a Romney victory in Ohio. They are also evidence that Scott Jennings, my former White House colleague and now Romney Ohio campaign director, was accurate when he told me that the Buckeye GOP effort is larger than the massive Bush 2004 get-out-the-vote operation.

Democrats explain away those numbers by saying that they are turning out new young Ohio voters. But I asked Kelly Nallen, the America Crossroads data maven, about this. She points out that there are 12,612 GOP “millennials” (voters aged 18-29) who’ve voted early compared with 9,501 Democratic millennials.

Are Democrats bringing out episodic voters who might not otherwise turn out? Not according to Ms. Nallen. She says that about 90% of each party’s early voters so far had also voted in three of the past four Ohio elections.

In other words, the dam that O’s built among early voters simply isn’t tall enough to hold back the red tide next Tuesday. One caveat to Rove’s point about the national numbers, though: According to RCP, Obama’s either tied or ahead in seven of the last 10 national polls taken. Romney still leads in Rasmussen and Gallup, and in only three of those 10 does Obama reach 49 percent or higher, but things have evened out a bit after Romney’s post-Denver debate surge. Case in point is the new Fox News poll tonight, which has the race dead even at 46 after Romney led by a point in early October. The topline number is not so good for Mitt, but the fundamentals are:

Independents give the edge to Romney by seven percentage points (46-39 percent). That’s down from a 12-point advantage in early October…

Among the subgroup of most interested voters, those who are “extremely” interested in the election, Romney leads Obama by 53-42 percent…

Romney’s supporters continue to be more enthusiastic: 69 percent say it’s extremely important he win, while 59 percent of those backing Obama feel that way.

Romney also leads on this metric, which will hopefully influence a lot of undecideds next week:

How is Obama even when the numbers look that rosy for his opponent? Partly because the partisan split has moved from D+1 in the last poll taken in October to D+5 in this one, which strains credulity as a prospect for election day. This is why it’s so hard to make guesses based on the polls right now — even some of the ones that are in sync, like the national polls showing O inching into a tie, have obvious weaknesses that may make the results questionable.

Rove’s other prediction, incidentally: At least 279 electoral votes, which jibes with Romney political director Rich Beeson telling reporters today that he thinks the campaign can win a few other midwestern states besides Ohio. Exit question: Second look at Karl Rove?

Lots of polls out lately with stupidly high numbers of undecideds for this late in the game. Either people have been thrown back into confusion (in which case they’re likely uncertain between Romney and staying home) or it’s a sign that there’s serious poll manipulation going on.

Not that anybody would manipulate polls for a phony narrative or anything…

I was going to wait until election day because I love to go to the polls and all that. I know, I’m nuts, but I love to vote.

Well, I’m in Nevada and we have early voting which I HATE, but then I didn’t get to vote on that.

After what happened on the east coast, I am chomping at the bit to vote because I now have this fear that something will happen and I won’t get to vote. I can go do it tomorrow. I am more than ready to pull the lever. But then I lose out on the fun of going to the poll.

Rove isn’t a Pollyanna. If he thought Zero was going to win, he’d say so. He sure as hell said so in ’08, over and over and over. He also said he thought Zero would win last summer. Now, he is calling a Romney win with no hesitation whatsoever. That means he’s done the math, and the math adds up. Rove knows election math.

I just looked this up a few minutes ago. Rove predicted an Obama electoral college landslide in 2008. He had it Obama 338 McCain 200. The only misses he had was giving Indiana and North Carolina to McCain.

You revving up your people in Oiho? :)
I have Fl covered..we need you.

bazil9 on October 31, 2012 at 9:47 PM

Sure have done a lot here by sending out emails, links, YouTube vids, you name it and I’ve probably done it. Only one stubborn Leftie I couldn’t convince.

I’ve lost count of all the registered Dems we know, including union members, who voted for O in 2008 but are voting for R&R this year. They are very vocal in how much they hate everything O has done to this country. Hopefully, there are many, many more Dems in Ohio who feel the same way.

Election night will be a real nail-biter here. If the early votes/absentees go R&R, then it should be a done deal.

Interesting fact about Vera Baker, (Obamma’s alleged mistress), she had a prominent online presence until about April 2008, when everything was literally scrubbed on her. And she moved to a foreign country too IIRC.

Rove’s being overly conservative, since that’s his nature and he always likes to save the best for last, as it doesn’t risk complacency and builds even more momentum at closing time. He’ll come out with something even better Monday, my guess.

I’ve known him for 30 years, and that’s just his way.

As to the EV, I’m still maintaining that Romney gets from about 315 to 330, including OH and PA.

Not even a glance at Rove unless he suddenly gives AKIN some money. And also none to the RNC and NRSC All arrogant and pig headed that seems to want a Dem to win. If Akin loses it is thier fault not Akins

Sure have done a lot here by sending out emails, links, YouTube vids, you name it and I’ve probably done it. Only one stubborn Leftie I couldn’t convince.

I’ve lost count of all the registered Dems we know, including union members, who voted for O in 2008 but are voting for R&R this year. They are very vocal in how much they hate everything O has done to this country. Hopefully, there are many, many more Dems in Ohio who feel the same way.

Election night will be a real nail-biter here. If the early votes/absentees go R&R, then it should be a done deal.

I said it in Feb, May, Aug,Sept, Oct and starting tomorrow Nov. Romney 58% Obumbler 40% and Other 2% and we will all be racists on Wednesday morning. I’ll take it! Plus Karl Rove is a fatheaded azzhole.

It appears that the pollsters did just what i thought they would do; adjust the sample to a small Dem lead and then at the end spread the sample out to D+5 and create the impression of momentum for O and make it a horserace again. Spin it for your guy and make it more interesting to cover…a twofer for the media.

That’s why it’s easier to say, the Republicans won a wave election in 2010. Since that time the Democrats have declared war on the tea party, held up almost all legislation coming from the people’s representatives in the House, and not passed a budget in the Senate, keeping spending at the inflated levels Democrats put through which aggravated the tea party in the first place. Based on this, why should Democrats win this time around and what has Barack Obama done to earn a single vote? I’m just saying!!!

now this is clever. go to DC to check out sex story..and right now, one of the lead stories

Lowery, who gave the benediction at the January 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama, told the audience of up to 300 African-Americans “that when he was a young militant, he used to say all white folks were going to hell. Then he mellowed and just said most of them were. Now, he said, he is back to where he was,” according to an Oct. 31 report in the Monroe County Reporter newspaper.

“I don’t know what kind of a n—– wouldn’t vote with a black man running,” Lowery also told the audience in the St. James Baptist Church in Forsyth, Ga., according to the Reporter.

“He was saying [that] based on all of the hatred that’s going on” towards President Barack Obama, Helen Butler, the executive director of Lowery’s Georgia-based Coalition for the People’s Agenda, told The Daily Caller.

“He just fell that he should feel the way he used to feel,” Butler, who attended the rally, explained.

“Of course he doesn’t believe that all whites should go to hell,” she added.

Rove isn’t a Pollyanna. If he thought Zero was going to win, he’d say so. He sure as hell said so in ’08, over and over and over. He also said he thought Zero would win last summer. Now, he is calling a Romney win with no hesitation whatsoever. That means he’s done the math, and the math adds up. Rove knows election math.

There’s a question I’ve been dying to ask for a while: why do people place so much importance on this “RCP average” thingamajig?

RCP just frickin takes the bunch of whatever polls that come out that day, and average them up. There is no effort, no mystery, no magic involved. We can all do the same thing and come up with the exact same daily average.

I just don’t understand why everyone in the world has started quoting the “RCP average” as some sort of God like truth or indicator of the election.

Allaphpundit, when are you going to just stop worrying about very biased media polls insanely oversampling democrats and even with this they are still showing Romney winning independents by an 8 points on average? Do you really think that Romney is going to lose Ohio and the elections when he is winning the independents by 8 points on average in Ohio and nationally? Do you really believe that the democrats in 2012 are going to match or even surpass their turnouts of 2008 when every poll including the biased one show a huge enthusiasm gap in favor of Republicans?

Just look at the absentee ballots request from Ohio. As of today (less than 3 days are left for absentee ballots request in Ohio) the democrat have requested 125,000 absentee ballots LESS than 2008 and the Republican have requested 10,000 MORE absentee ballots than in 2008… Therefore just in absentee ballots alone Obama has lost 135,000 votes in Ohio in 2012 compared to 2008 and that is assuming that all the democrats absentee ballots are voting for him. He won Ohio in 2008 by 260,000 votes. If in absentee ballots alone he is going to lose at least 135,000 votes then there is no way he is going to win Ohio…

We can’t know until Election Day who is right. I stand by my view that Obama is losing independent voters decisively, because the national and state polls both support that thesis. I stand by my view that Republican turnout will be up significantly from recent-historic lows in 2008 in the key swing states (Ohio, Wisconsin, Colorado) and nationally, because the post-2008 elections, the party registration data, the early-voting and absentee-ballot numbers, and the Rasmussen and Gallup national party-ID surveys (both of which have solid track records) all point to this conclusion. I stand by my view that no countervailing evidence outside of poll samples shows a similar surge above 2008 levels in Democratic voter turnout, as would be needed to offset Romney’s advantage with independents and increased GOP voter turnout. And I stand by the view that a mechanical reading of polling averages is an inadequate basis to project an event unprecedented in American history: the re-election of a sitting president without a clear-cut victory in the national popular vote.

Perhaps, despite the paucity of evidence to the contrary, these assumptions are wrong. But if they are correct, no mathematical model can provide a convincing explanation of how Obama is going to win re-election. He remains toast.

Note – those eeyorish state polls assume a turnout model that is at least as heavy-Rat as 2008. Not. Going. To. Happen.